Since the Raspberry Pi came onto the scene in 2012 I have been intrigued by it. A marvellous creation with a multitude of applications and add-ons.

I was contacted about a year ago by a client, Si [@nxe711c] in LA who wanted to start developing some ideas for use with the Pi. I gladly obliged and have been making things for him since. These ideas have been morphing and adapting and hopefully next year will see some products both available on the market and in the open source arena.

Above is an adaption of an Adafruit design (Powerboost), it is a LiPo load sharing battery charger with integrated Pi CPU cooling fan. It is designed as a hat to sit on the top of a RPi 3 making a portable unit.

​Below is the latest development, a USB signal switching unit, as yet unpopulated but will take 2x USB inputs and with the aid of Raspberry Pi GPIO direct the USB inputs to a number of outputs. Again it is designed as a hat but doesn't have the through pin connectors for the 40way pin header.

It has been great fun to work on these projects and 2017 should see some new ideas rolling out of the stable - Watch this space!